


4am

by bellax_xmuerte



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3697736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellax_xmuerte/pseuds/bellax_xmuerte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt fill - #12: things you said when you thought I was asleep</p>
<p>Eggsy has trouble sleeping, darkness brings anxiety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	4am

**Author's Note:**

> Also available on my tumblr, here:   
> http://nataliescourageclub.tumblr.com/post/115709456197

We’re in bed together. Your arm is wrapped firmly around my waist. I don’t know what time it is, but I know it must be early – maybe three or four in the morning. I remember you told me once that four AM always makes you rather anxious - you’d read somewhere, when you were a child, that it was the time you were most likely to die during the night. You said you didn’t believe it, not really, but when you find yourself awake at four AM you always have to do something to distract yourself anyway. Scared that it might be true, and that you might waste your last few minutes on earth by staring silently into darkness.

That’s why, when you start talking, I know that you think I’m still asleep. So, I don’t say anything. I don’t correct you. I just listen. Unwilling to interrupt you and make you feel self conscious. Your voice is soft as you talk, telling me things you don’t expect me to hear, the rhythm of your voice ebbing and flowing like a summer tide. You say… __

_‘I ain’t never been much of a sleeper me. Not like you, Harry. You can fall asleep anywhere. You can fall asleep for England. Remember when you fell asleep in that briefing and Merlin drew that dick on your head? That was Roxy’s idea. Bet you never knew that. She thought it was funny, how you fall asleep. All at once and that. I ain’t never been like that._

_‘It takes me ages to drift off at night. Nervous, I suppose. Worried, maybe - even here, Harry. And I know that’s just me being stupid, I ain’t been happier in my life before, but I don’t like been away from my mum and my sister. I know he’s better when I’m away, I must set him off somehow, but he’s still there with ‘em, ain’t he? And it’s hard to forget that, ain’t it?_

_‘Sometimes I wake up because I hear something, and it’s just a cat in the bins, or you knocking your book off the side, or this old house creaking and moaning but, for a moment, just for a moment, I forget that I’m here with you. Then I get to thinking about my old home, and about the noises that the flat is making without me. And sometimes, if it’s not too late, I give my mum a quick ring, just to make sure that she’s all right. I don’t know if you know that, Harry, but there it is. I phoned her loads last week. She tells me I’m being daft, but I know she’s glad I’ve called, I know she likes to make sure I’m okay too. Not that I’m in any trouble here with you, but that’s just what mums do, I suppose. Worry._

_‘Sometimes, I almost tell her about the bad dreams I have, or about how I’m a bit scared of the dark, or about how I always get to thinking that I’m gonna die at four AM – even though I know it’s probably bullshit – but I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. I think she’s the same._

_‘I think she stays awake, I think she finds it hard to sleep, just like me. I sometimes think about us both, lying in that flat, separated by a cheap plaster wall - her awake next to Dean worrying about me and my sister and me, lying awake in my own room, anxious about them, my door bolted from the inside, a knife under my pillow… I used to take the knife out of the drawer when they were in bed and put it back first thing._

_‘I think I was nine the first time I did that. There was another man before Dean, he was worse. I think you’d hate me saying that, Harry, I know you hate Dean, but this man, Phil, he was worse. He used to come into my room in the middle of the night an’ just start whacking me with his belt. So, my mum, after it happened a few times, she bought me a lock and she told me to stay inside until the sun came up, every night, no matter what I thought I heard._

_‘That’s too much for a little kid, Harry. The anxiety was too much. So, some nights I’d manage to fall asleep but wake up in a puddle of my own piss. When that happened, I’d creep outta my room, go to the bathroom and rinse out my sheets with the tap running so slowly, so quietly, that it’d take me ‘bout three hours to wash them clean and ring them out. Then I’d creep back into my room, bolt the door, tuck my damp sheets back onto my bed and sit with my head against the wall. By the time I got home from school, they were dry again._

_‘I think my mum knew about the sheets. In the morning, when she made breakfast, she used to walk over to me and kiss my hands. They were always bright red the next day, sore from all the scrubbing and twisting. It was a miracle I ever did all right at school. But I’ve always been okay at learning things – maybe I got it from my mum, maybe I got it from my dad…_

_‘I don’t remember nothing about my dad except that he loved me and I didn’t piss myself, or bolt my door, or stay awake, or hide a knife when he was around. All that stuff happened later._

_‘I wonder where I’d be now if he was still alive. I wonder if you’d still be his friend, Harry. I think you would. And I think this would never have happened. You and me, I mean. It would have been proper awkward, can you imagine me coming on to you if you were still his best mate? Nah, I couldn’t have done that, I bet you couldn’t have either. Maybe that’s the only good thing to ‘ave come out of all of this. You and my little sister. And maybe that don’t seem like a lot to most people but, to me, Harry, it makes all the difference in the world…’_

I listen to you talk until a wave of tiredness sweeps over me and then I start to feel my eyes close–-


End file.
